This invention relates in general to electronic devices, and in particular to the management of pop-up windows displayed on electronic devices.
Electronic devices, such as personal digital assistants, pagers, cellular telephones, computers, GPS receivers, database managers and wireless internet devices, continue to increase in functionality, complexity, and availability. Application programs within the electronic device provide a multiplicity of functionality for the end user. Typical application programs are schedulers, address books, notepads, alarm clocks, system maintenance, and messaging.
With increased functionality and complexity, simplification of the user interface grows in importance. Simplification of the user interface in electronic devices today includes the use of pop-up windows. A pop-up window is a viewing area within a display that provides a visual alert when an event, such as an incoming message, an alarm clock reminder, a calendar appointment, a low battery warning, a low memory warning or a printer error, has occurred.
The pop up window may be a full screen or a portion of the screen and represents a bordered region, typically of rectangular shape into which a message is displayed. As events occur, a pop-up window corresponding to each event is displayed. Typically, an audible or vibratory alert is also activated concurrently with the posting of the pop-up window. Pop-up windows pile up indefinitely, each on top of the previous like a deck of cards. The user views them in the reverse order from which they arrive, starting with the most recent. The user dismisses each one by selecting one of the choices on the pop-up window typically through the pressing of a button on the electronic device. Each application program receives notification of the user""s selection as the corresponding pop-up window moves to the top of the pile and is acted upon by the user.
An electronic device may also include a receiver, functioning similarly to a wireless communication device. Wireless applications provide the end user up to the minute stock prices, weather, traffic reports, and other xe2x80x9cneed to knowxe2x80x9d information. Query applications further provide wireless access to information such as restaurant reviews, show times, sports scores and flight information. Sending and receiving short messages also is possible. With wireless connectivity, pop-up windows additionally include notification of the receipt of a message, or notification of an event received in a message such as a stock price or weather warning, out of range of the transmitter notification, and loss of system contact.
In some electronic devices, pop-up windows can be changed if an event changes. For example, in a wireless communication device, a pop up window with the message xe2x80x9cyou have 2 messagesxe2x80x9d is changed to xe2x80x9cyou have 3 messagesxe2x80x9d when a new message is received.
The electronic device has a limited amount of memory that can be devoted to the storage of pop-up window information. Also, the number of asynchronous events that can possibly occur while the user is not in the proximity of the device is theoretically unlimited. Since it is not possible to determine whether the user is viewing the display, pop-up windows are continuously shown as the events that cause them occur. Additionally, the information in a particular pop-up window may become obsolete. For example, a pop-up window with the message xe2x80x9clow batteryxe2x80x9d is still displayed even after the battery is replaced until the user interacts with the pop-up window. Similarly, a printer error such as printer out of paper is still displayed even after the paper is replaced until the user interacts with the pop-up window. Messages such as xe2x80x9ccannot communicate with the systemxe2x80x9d similarly remain until the user interacts with the pop up window. In this case, a user sending a message to the system and receiving such a pop up window would resend the message even though the system contact had been reinstated and the message sent. The recipient then receives the message twice from the sender, resulting in confusion for both the sender and the recipient.
To eliminate confusion and minimize the memory used for pop-up windows, it is desirable for an electronic device to have the capability to automatically delete a pop-up window when it is no longer necessary or has become obsolete without any user interaction.